- Hong Kong: Beijing puppet regime police harass artist for trying to commemorate Tiananmen atrocities
Source: Associated Press
“A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city’s shrinking freedom of expression. Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go. Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.” (06/04/26)
- TX: Flesh-eating screwworm found, sparking fears for US cattle
Source: Washington Post
“A case of New World screwworm has been found in Texas six decades after the flesh-eating pest was largely eradicated in the United States, sparking an aggressive response amid fears about its potential impact on the livestock industry. The U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed the parasite was detected in the umbilical area of a 3-week-old calf in Zavala County. There have been no further cases detected, and efforts are underway to contain and eradicate it, the agency said in a statement Wednesday. New World screwworm is a parasitic fly that affects livestock, pets and wildlife, as well as people in rare cases. It lays eggs in open wounds or orifices, with the hatched maggots burrowing into and feeding on flesh. It’s typically found in South America and parts of the Caribbean but has moved north through Central America and Mexico since 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” (06/04/26)
- Guide missing for a week on Mount Everest found crawling to base camp: “Nothing short of a miracle”
Source: CBS News
“A Sherpa guide who went missing last week while descending Mount Everest with a client has been found alive, according to the crew that led the search for him. His survival amid treacherous conditions on the world’s tallest peak has been hailed as ‘a miracle’ by the mountaineering community in Nepal. Dawa Sherpa, 52, was located while crawling down to base camp and has since been reunited with his family, who said they had given up hope for his return. … Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search. He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water. A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.” (06/04/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guide-missing-week-mount-everest-found-alive-base-camp/
- America’s Exit Tax Is an Unconstitutional Violation of Human Rights, Part 1
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Wendy McElroy“The U.S. border and the requirements for U.S. citizenship or residency are defining issues of this decade. But almost all the attention they receive focuses on one side of the coin: namely, how to control immigration and who is entitled to citizenship or residency. The other side: how easily can Americans emigrate and renounce their citizenship? Expatriation is rare in comparison to the deluge of immigration in recent years, but the ease with which a citizen can become an expatriate is a litmus test of a government’s authoritarianism. How tight a grip does America claim to have over an individual and his wealth because of a geographical accident of birth? Exit taxes provide an answer.” (06/04/26)
- Can’t Anyone Here Not Play This Political Game?
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg“It may be 64 years after the New York Mets losing 120 baseball matches in their debut season led manager Casey Stengel to plead ‘Can’t anyone here play this game?’ Yet The Wall Street Journal columnist William A. Galston notes that the same question could still apply to another ‘two monumentally inept teams.’ … Galston has in mind the Democrats and Republicans, ‘Capitol Hill’s Unlovable Losers’ (May 27). Less than two full years after the 2024 presidential election, Galston has merely to nod at the former party’s abject failure to learn from their loss, and the latter’s squandering of what little momentum remains from their win.” (06/04/26)
- The Covenant
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders“Some argue that to sacralize others is not a legal contrivance, but an ontological discovery. Rights are real, some insist. Rights are a derivation, others argue. We need not settle that debate. Every tradition that has ever produced wisdom — whether Mosaic, Stoic, Vedic, or Taoist — arrives at the same conclusion: To trespass upon others without cause is not merely a crime, it is a desecration. … The very foundation of law, in every civilization that has not entirely lost its way, is an elaboration on this. One may not injure the innocent. One may not seize what is not his. One may not constrain a person without justification sufficient to meet the scrutiny of a free people who seek similar protections.” (06/04/26)
- AI Won’t Stave Off the Debt Disaster
Source: Law & LIberty
by Mitch Daniels“The evidence is persuasive that AI and related advances are already boosting the economy in the most important way possible, by raising productivity. That’s the biggest reason that GDP is surprising on the upside while job growth remains tepid. Moreover, forecasts that this favorable windage will accelerate seem highly credible. What’s not credible is the idea that even an AI-led productivity surge can suffice to offset our decades of dereliction. The Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, and other forecasters peg average future economic growth at a little under 2 percent. Assume a 70 percent boost from the AI revolution, to 3 percent or so, and it becomes possible to imagine our [sic] current debt level stabilizing, not improving but merely getting no worse. But even this daydream requires far too many improbable breaks.” [editor’s note: The US government debt isn’t “our” debt, it’s the US government’s debt. There’s a difference – TLK] (06/04/26)
- Nobody’s Perfect
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“Progressives rallying around the troubled candidacy of Graham Platner, the habitually dishonest skirt-chasing Totenkopf enthusiast challenging that nice Maine lady for a Senate seat, have learned precisely the wrong lessons from Republicans’ experience with Donald Trump, an experience that has left the GOP morally debased and ethically discredited and—perhaps Republicans will actually care about this part—unable to get much of what it wants politically. Legitimate issues, such as immigration control and abortion regulation, have been tainted by association with Trump and Trumpism, which means dishonesty and stupidity in the formulation of policy followed by incompetence and corruption in the execution of policy. Progressives will get the same thing from such a figure as Platner.” (06/04/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/platner-trump-morals-perfect-maine-primary/
- TDS Watch: The “Convicted Felon” Argument
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder“‘Trump is a convicted felon!’ Who hasn’t heard this attack line made constantly by critics of President Donald Trump? For them, Trump’s conviction settles the debate about his character and fitness for office. But consider what one prominent legal analyst — not from Fox News, Newsmax or a conservative publication — wrote about the case. The charge against Trump brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg boils down to this. Trump recorded payments connected to the Stormy Daniels matter as legal expenses. Bragg transformed that into 34 felony counts and secured a conviction in a jurisdiction where Trump remains unpopular. Elie Honig, CNN’s senior legal analyst, outlined his objections in New York Magazine. He was brutal.” (06/04/26)
- Boosting reliability: How HVDC “back to backs” improve power sharing between grids
Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Maggie Zhang“High-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology is widely recognized as the preferred solution for long-distance power transmission, but it also plays a critical role in ‘back to back’ connections that transfer power between neighboring grids. Electricity sharing among the nation’s three grid interconnections relies entirely on these back-to-back facilities, but most were built decades ago and have limited transfer capability. Upgrading these HVDC back-to-backs is an opportunity to help meet the nation’s rapidly rising demand for energy.” (06/04/26)
- Move Fast, Surveil Things
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Cooper Quintin“Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses, according to new reporting by Wired. EFF’s Threat Lab was able to confirm that the facial recognition code is present through static analysis of the application. This dangerous new Meta functionality stores faceprints as a series of 2,048 numbers uniquely representing the positioning of a person’s facial features. When this feature is activated, it will convert every new face in the sightlines of the surveillance glasses into a series of numbers, and compare it to all the existing faceprints in the user’s database. Wired and EFF confirmed that the code is present and active, though not yet exposed to consumers.” (06/04/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/move-fast-surveil-things
- Why do students censor themselves?
Source: Expression
by Chapin Lenthall-Cleary“In our College Free Speech Rankings survey, we ask students how often they feel they cannot express their opinions. Around one in six say they self-censor fairly often or very often. What can we say about what causes this? First, self-censorship is more common on the right …. Why are conservatives, and especially conservative women, more likely to self-censor? One reason might be to hide their political beliefs from professors (who skew heavily liberal) in order to get a better grade in class …” (06/04/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/why-do-students-censor-themselves
- Congresswoman Fakes Code Pink “Assault,” And Other Notes
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna falsely reported that antiwar activist Medea Benjamin ‘smacked’ her during a confrontation on Thursday, subsequently calling the police in an effort to get the Code Pink leader charged with assault. If you watch the video of the so-called ‘assault,’ it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. The 73 year-old activist barely grazes the clothing on Luna’s arm with her hand while speaking, after which the US Air Force veteran Luna collapses into a pile of blubbering victimhood. Benjamin reports that she was briefly detained by Capitol Police after the incident, but was released without charges after officers reviewed the video footage.” (06/04/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/04/congresswoman-fakes-code-pink-assault-and-other-notes/
- Spy chief pick has the Trump playbook: Attack political enemies
Source: Washington Post
by David Ignatius“Bill Pulte has no intelligence experience. But he has proved he’ll target the president’s foes.” (06/04/26)
- Nonzero, 06/04/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Seeing China Clearly | Robert Wright & Tianyu Fang.” (06/04/26)